


the five w’s (and one h) of journalism and how to use them; as demonstrated by a. j. crowley, demon

by yellogazello



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Drabble, Fluff, I can’t tag, M/M, anthony jgay crowley is gay, hey wheres my demon girlfriend btw, i wrote it as them kissing aggressively but read it how u like, im sorry, implied nfsw, ineffable husbands, prose, you can read it now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 15:04:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19770715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellogazello/pseuds/yellogazello
Summary: they’re working steadily through the wine, joking and laughing together on the sofa when aziraphale, downy and heathersoft, wipes his eyes and sighs:‘oh, crowley, whatever do you want from me?’now, that’s quite a big question, especially for one so spectacularly drunk, so crowley cannot quite answer it in that moment. probably, he laughs it off, maybe he makes a flirtatious comment, but he doesn’t answer it.later, though, he does, to his bedroom ceiling, to his lonely apartment, to himself. he lies down, shuts his eyes and answers.





	the five w’s (and one h) of journalism and how to use them; as demonstrated by a. j. crowley, demon

> _ ineffable husbands | set some short time after the apocawasn’t | literally just a drabble i wrote on the train | 1261 words _

they’re working steadily through the wine, joking and laughing together on the sofa when aziraphale, downy and heathersoft, wipes his eyes and sighs:

‘oh, crowley, whatever do you want from me?’

now, that’s quite a big question, especially for one so spectacularly drunk, so crowley cannot quite answer it in that  _ moment.  _ probably, he laughs it off, maybe he makes a flirtatious comment, but he doesn’t  _ answer it. _

later, though, he does, to his bedroom ceiling, to his lonely apartment, to himself. he lies down, shuts his eyes and answers. 

x x x

_ to answer the question in short: i want you. _

_ to answer the question in medium: for god’s sake, for satan’s sake, for whatever menial sake sam who works in the co-op down the road holds, for the sake of the earth you love so much, for the sake of all the old bookshops and tumbledown florists in london, i fucking want you.  _

_ to answer the question in long: here is a small essay on what i want, which is - spoiler alert - you.  _

_ the five w’s of journalism, sometimes referred to as five w’s (and one h), or 5w1h, or the six w’s, are the most basic questions used to gather and present information. they are who, what, when, where, and why (and how). often used for police investigations or news-style writing, the five w’s (and one h) are said to have originated from the work of artistotle and his  _ nicomachean ethics, _ credited as the source of the elements of circumstance (or  _ septem circumstantiae).  _ i won’t get into their history, as i’m sure you already know all about it. you remember aristotle, don’t you? funny bloke.  _

_ so here, angel, is my answer: what i want, and who i want and where i want and when i want and why i want and how i want. here are my five w’s (and one h).  _

_ who do i want? i want the angel aziraphale, and i want all of him. i want him round and golden on a summer afternoon, dandelion-clock, weeping willow, dusty sunlight. i want him freshly-fallen snow in the winter, i want him a slice of pale sky, edges coloured dark with the weight of the weather. i want him thunderstorm. i want him lightning bright and rain soft and cloudy grey. i want him winged, i want him fallen. i want age-old hands and a heavy brow and it’s cheesy, i know. i know. _

_ when and where do i want you? anytime, anywhere, as long as you’re with me. i want you with me in the earliest strains of the morning and i want you with me under the cool shade of the night. i want you for breakfast and lunch and dinner and dessert. be with me, in eden, in ancient rome, medieval london, paris, oh, all the times and all the places in between. frown when i make a clumsy baker leave the oven on, pout when the city’s in ashes, smile at me with your eyes when you walk through the plague hospital one final time. mouth thank you, but don’t slip away. we’ll accept our commendations and go home together. please don’t go, okay? _

_ what do i actually want with you? that’s easy. a life, on earth, together. we could buy a cottage in the south downs and start an allotment and be beautifully mundane. we could travel the globe, never stick in one place for too long, buy a boat and breathe the sea. we could make ourselves kings - i could wage war and plunder for gold, you could heal and build and grow. we could rearrange the stars. we could make a new city. we could stay right where we are forever and ever. i want a house with you, with a bed we share, and a greenhouse full of my plants, and a library for all your books that you’ll probably never leave, and a back garden and a freezer and an oven and i’ll learn to cook. i want to get pointlessly married. i want a life with you. _

_ why do i want you? that’s harder, because there are billions and squillions of reasons why (and we may have eternity but i don’t want to spend it listing all the reasons why). an easier question to ask would be, why wouldn’t i want you? because the answer would be two words: who wouldn’t?  _

_ but how come i want  _ you _? you, as in an angel. we’re enemies, opposite ends on a magnet, pitted against each other from the very start. well, truth be told, i don’t really know - either i’m a really shitty demon, or you’re a really shitty angel. probably both, actually. definitely both. we’re great humans, though, so we’ve got that going for us.  _

_ i don’t know how it’s going to be. i have this image in my mind: we’ll kiss, and the earth will shake. we’ll touch, and heaven and hell themselves will snarl and raise their hackles and unleash armageddon all over again. what happens when a demon and an angel fall love? does the sky fall and rain down on the earth? does the ground explode? do tectonic plates tremble in their earthy sockets? do buildings fall, do people die? it’s scaring me shitless. i don’t even think i want to know, but i suppose we’ll find out - there’s a first time for everything, after all.  _

_ so, in conclusion, what do i want from you? i want you, aziraphale, i want you.  _

x x x 

he tells aziraphale this, well, a rough version of this: a rather jumbled version, lacking somewhat in elcoquence, also he’s fairly drunk (again) on red, and they’re sitting in the bentley. it’s very late (or is it early?) and aziraphale, who is sober in more ways than one, rubs the backs his shivering hands as he sobs, hard and sour, the words falling off his twisted tongue in clumps, in clots. he doesn’t let the angel touch his shades. he doesn’t want to show his eyes, not right now. 

and as he chokes out the last shaking ‘i want you,’ aziraphale cuts him off with a gentle kiss.

the world does not crumble. reality does not fall in on itself. the sky does not collapse and the tectonic plates stay perfectly still aside from the usual shifting and the ground does not explode. heaven and hell continue to pace, unaware. the night is still and quiet, honeysuckled, inkblack and full.

the world does not end when the demon and the angel part for breath then fall back into each other. it doesn’t end when jackets are removed, when hands brush curving spines, when eyelashes flutter. the bentley’s seats are slightly scorched and there’s a strange smell hanging, like candyfloss and sulphur, but the universe remains intact.

contrary to popular belief, the five w’s (and one h) of journalism did not originate from the ethical writings of aristotle. they’d existed, way back before him, before the first thought of ethics had even been thunked, since day one. there’s been six thousand years of them so far - six thousand years of whos and whats and whens and wheres and whys (and hows). of course there have been. they were one of crowley’s. 

‘what do you want from me?’ an angel once asked. 

the night is still, as crowley answers, blissfully, lovingly, again and again and again. 

_ i want you.  _

x x x

_ can u tell i’m a lonely pining 15 year old full of hormones _

_ hope u enjoyed this it’s very unedited and probs shit but hey i wrote something! and finished it! in under a day! _

_ have a good morning/afternoon/evening :) _

__ \- prim _ _


End file.
